First Mass of the Nativity
Isaiah 9:2-4,6-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14
+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A warm welcome to each of you this evening. I am delighted that you have all come out to meet our newborn Lord. My prayer is that each of us will experience him here tonight in our worship, and also that we might experience his presence in one another, especially over the next few days. Perhaps, we might even recognize his presence in that impossible cousin, that self-absorbed neighbor, that ill-mannered stranger. I pray that all of us know the love, the joy, the renewal of Christmas.
One reason I love this evening’s mass so much is that Christmas turns out folks who are more circumspect about Christianity and the Church. While I miss the many parishioners who leave Washington for Christmas, I am thrilled by seeing those who come less frequently to mass. I especially welcome you.
I read recently part of an old column by Erma Bombeck. She wrote,
In church the other Sunday I was intent on a small child who was turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn’t gurgling, spitting, humming, kicking, tearing the hymnals, or rummaging through his mother’s handbag. He was just smiling. Finally, his mother jerked him about and in a stage whisper that could be heard a little off Broadway [she] said, “Stop that grinning! You’re in church!”1
It makes laugh me, but also it embarrasses me that so many think that’s typical Christianity. I’d have wanted to give that child Good News, to assure him that God does want us to be happy, that God smiles at us and so we should be smiling in church. Like Bombeck, I’d point out that God clearly has “a sense of humor to have created the likes of us. . . .” Unfortunately, Christians often wear faith, as Bombeck puts it, “with the solemnity of a mourner, the gravity of a mask of tragedy, and the dedication of a Rotary badge.”
But that glum, humorless, joyless image is not our message. That’s not the gospel. That’s not what Jesus is about. That’s not what Christians are about. That’s not what Christmas is about. We’re here because we have a healthy yearning for a God of love, a God of joy, a God of laughter, a God of warmth, a God of acceptance. That’s the God of Jesus Christ, even though Christians often are absurd, even hypocrites. For most of us, following Christ has made us more humane, more joyful, more purposeful; better able to laugh, especially at ourselves; better able to love, albeit still quite imperfectly; better able to forbear and to forgive, though it still requires effort and discipline.
The story of Jesus’ birth has universal appeal. This evening all the world sings and rejoices in it. But if you look hard at the story, you might wonder why. The oppressive Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, backed by a mighty occupying military and a sleazy collaborator – King Herod, has uprooted the lives of countless humble people. His tax census has forced a poor, possibly old, man and a very pregnant young woman to leave their home in Nazareth and to embark on an arduous 70 mile journey to Bethlehem. When they arrive, worn out from their journey, there’s no place to lay their head.
Huddled in the darkness and stink and manure of a wretched stable – possibly just a cave in the side of a cliff, Joseph must have been humiliated not to be better able to provide warmth or comfort for his wife as she went into labor. It must have been a long, grueling night for them. When the baby Jesus finally arrived, the shepherds came and adored him and then went on their way – leaving them alone. The magi came and adored him, but then they quickly slipped away to save their lives. The worldly powers were hunting down Jesus. His birth provoked paranoid Herod to massacre innocent children.
Probably every one of us received a better welcome into this world than Jesus did. Scratch the story and underneath the sentimentality, the sparkles, and the airbrush, there’s failure, misery, injustice, fear. What attracts us to this story?
It’s certainly not the world of the comfortable, upper middle class Christmas that Hollywood gives us. It’s miles from our reality of sanitation, security, warmth, convenience, comfort, rich foods. We have family and friends who would be with us in such a crisis. We aren’t subject to a brutal, cruel dictatorship that messes with our lives and causes great hardship. Why do we want to identify with this story? Where’s the good tidings of great joy in this story?
The fundamental message of Christmas is that God is the source of joy, that God loves us, that God is with us. And at Christmas we all sense this Good News – however faint, however hidden in the stress of buying presents, of seeing (or avoiding) family and friends, of fretting about our place in life, of feeling saddened by unmet expectations. Despite all of the difficulties, the disappointments, and the exhaustion of the season, we can glimpse the Good News.
In that stable, we see God’s joy, God’s love, God’s presence. God has come into the world. He has come for all people – for everyone: for those who follow him and for those who run from him; for those who seek him and for those who ignore him; for those who welcome him and for those who reject him. He’s there for each and everyone of us.
I read a story recently of a pastor, Henry Carter, whose church sponsors a home for children.2 One Christmas Eve, the housemother interrupted the pastor as he was preparing his sermon. One of the children, Tommy, had crawled under his bed and refused to come out. At times it strikes me as a rather sensible reaction to our culture’s frantic, anxious celebration of Christmas.
The housemother needed the pastor’s help. The pastor went to the small dormitory room, which had six beds. He walked over and stood next to Tommy’s bed. Tommy was completely hidden under the bed. Looking down, the pastor spoke to the boy’s bedspread. He talked about the lighted tree next door in the church, about the gifts underneath it, about all of the good things awaiting Tommy. He pointed out that if Tommy wanted to enjoy all of this, he had to come out from under the bed. Tommy didn’t answer.
The pastor, stressed out by other obligations, went ahead and got down on his knees and peered under the bed. He saw two enormous blue eyes staring back at him. The child was small. The pastor figured that he could easily pull him out from under the bed and then get on with things. But love doesn’t coerce. That wouldn’t have built any trust, which is what Tommy needed. Pulling him out would’ve been disrespectful of Tommy. Force doesn’t persuade. And surely, if he did pull him out, Tommy would’ve wound back up under the bed sooner or later – and even more cut off, more alienated, more frightened, more upset.
The pastor, crouched on his knees, tried to coax Tommy out by talking about the menu for the Christmas Eve dinner, about the great feast being prepared for them, about the light and warmth of the party. Still dead silence. Not a glance of recognition.
Although he was neatly dressed, wearing a suit, the pastor lay down on the floor. On his stomach he began to wriggle himself under the bed, which snagged at his suit as he slid. He lay for a long time with his cheek pressed against the floor and spoke to Tommy about the decorations in the church – the candles, the wreaths. He talked about the service – what carols Tommy was going to sing. Then he ran out of things to say and just waited there beside Tommy.
After a while of lying on the cold floor in the still, dark silence, the pastor felt a small, chilly hand reaching into his hand. A little while longer, the pastor spoke again to Tommy. He noticed that it was a bit tight under the bed and suggested that perhaps they should stand up. And slowly – in no rush, they both rose up.
In the darkness under the bed, God had given the pastor a glimpse into the mystery of Christmas. The pastor realized that we, too, had hidden ourselves from God, that God had called us from above, that God had pleaded for us to come out, to enjoy him, to be with him. We haven’t always responded well to God. But he has never walked away. Instead, he came closer, made himself more vulnerable, worked harder to build our trust.
In Bethlehem, God wriggled into our cramped darkness. He came to be with us in our loneliness and alienation. His patient, gentle presence showed his love for us. When we’re ready, we muster some courage like Tommy, and we stretch out our hand, and we grab his, and then we’re raised up to the light, the feast, the joy that awaits.
I wish each of you a Merry Christmas, and God’s joy and love be with you!
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
- Erma Bombeck quoted by Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace?, Zondervan (1997), p. 32.
- Sermon preached by John A. Huffman, Jr., at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, California, on 24 December 2005. He quotes at length an article by Henry Carter in Guide Posts Magazine
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
